Just over an hour from Rossland, at an elevation of 1775 meters is the local ski-touring playground of Kootenay Pass. With such a variety of aspects and elevations, it’s always possible to find great skiing. Strong North-Westerly have scoured many slopes, but on another cold clear day yesterday we found dense consistent and easy skiing powder on the South-East slopes off Wolf Ridge and the steep North-East facing trees off the Camels Humps.

Monte on Wolf Ridge.

We met up with some ski buddies from the East Kootenays, who demonstrated the red-neck skier’s technique of candling dying trees. Not the most politically correct of practices (I guess that’s the point) but probably handy for an impromptu BBQ of the endangered Mountain Caribou you’ve run down to exhaustion and beat to death with your skis.

Tree Candle.

I was back at Red today, lapping my favorite lines on Granite in the sunshine. The snow is cold chalky and consistent, with great coverage, yet inexplicably there’s almost nobody skiing. The regular retirees are presumably enjoying the groomers on Paradise, but Motherlode has been eerily empty.